Project Renova | Book 4 | Legacy, page 1
part #4 of Project Renova Series
LEGACY
Terry Tyler
©Terry Tyler 2018
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously.
Any resemblance to actual events, locations or persons, alive or dead, is entirely coincidental.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical or otherwise, without the express written permission of Terry Tyler.
All rights reserved.
In loving memory of my father, Douglas Gibbs.
Contents
Introduction (with link to The Story So Far)
Prologue: Chester, April 2027
Part One: 2127
Chapter One: Bree
Chapter Two: Silas
Chapter Three: Bree
Chapter Four: Silas
Chapter Five: Bree
Back Then: Barney and Verlander, April-May 2027
Part Two: 2089
Chapter Six: Sky
Chapter Seven: Luke
Chapter Eight: Byron
Chapter Nine: Luke
Chapter Ten: Luke
Part Three: 2050
Chapter Eleven: Phoenix
Chapter Twelve: Phoenix
Chapter Thirteen: Phoenix
Chapter Fourteen: Phoenix
Chapter Fifteen: Phoenix
Chapter Sixteen: Phoenix
Part Four: 2029
Chapter Seventeen: Lottie
Part Five: 2127
Chapter Eighteen: Bree
Chapter Nineteen: Silas
Chapter Twenty: Bree
Chapter Twenty-One: Silas
Chapter Twenty-Two: Bree
Chapter Twenty-Three: Home
Back Then: Verlander, September 2027
The Story So Far
Author's Note
Other Books By Terry Tyler
INTRODUCTION
Thank you for downloading the final novel in the Project Renova Series, and for staying with it until the end.
If you read the other three books some time ago, or if your memory is as bad as mine, and you would like a quick recap about Tipping Point, Lindisfarne and UK2 before you start reading (or, indeed, if you haven't read them), please click here: The Story So Far.
When I began writing the series it was only ever meant to be a trilogy, but I knew even before UK2 was published that I wasn't ready to say goodbye to this world, so I was delighted when readers said they'd love to read more; I'd already been thinking about what happens next, but I didn't want to just pick up where I'd left off.
Legacy is in many ways a completely new story, as it starts with village girl Bree and traveller Silas, a hundred years later, then moves backwards in time to show how theirs and others' lives were shaped by the characters you have met in the earlier books. As I was writing it, I began to understand that it was about more than how the sins of the fathers are visited on future generations, and more than the way in which society develops after most of the population have died: it's about the threads that weave the generations together, the way we keep those we love in our memories so they never truly leave us, and the way history can be distorted, or lost forever.
Aside from three short chapters about Verlander's group who escaped UK Central at the end of UK2, Legacy spans four time periods:
2127: a hundred years after the end of UK2
2089 ~ 2107
2030 ~ 2074
2029 (the return of Lottie)
Enjoy!
Prologue
Chester
A remote airfield, northern Iceland
April, 2027
It wasn't a terminal, it was a friggin' hut.
Throughout the plane journey from Sussex, Chester had been looking forward to comfortable seating, a clean restroom, hot chow and decent coffee. Maybe even chicks in those cute uniforms to greet him, though he knew that might be stretching it.
"We'll get something to eat at the terminal, they know we're coming," Alex Verlander told them, several times, in that dumb accent of his that couldn't decide if it was American or British. When they stepped off the plane, though, in this freezing wasteland in the middle of nowhere, all Chester could see was the hut.
Verlander ushered them in, all smiles, like there was a treat in store.
Sure there was. A two-ring stove, a few bottles of water, plastic cups for hot chocolate, packets of oat cookies and Ramen noodles.
Friggin' Ramen noodles. No one ate them 'cept backpackers and poor folks.
The only other stuff in the hut was crockery and chairs that looked like they came from a trailer park garbage tip, but Verlander and the others got stuck into the cookies while Barney put the water on to boil, laughing like he was having a blast.
Chester gobbled down his noodles and took his hot chocolate outside for a smoke. At last, a smoke. Back in Central he'd been making do with nicotine gum for months, but there was no pregnant Flora now, no baby Harlan, and he could do what he damn well wanted.
The door opened behind him, but he didn't turn round. Didn't care who it was.
"Make the most of it, kidda!"
Chester recognised Barney's voice, heard the click of a lighter.
He wanted to ignore him, but his dad's words floated into his head. Be the nice guy. It always pays to be neighbourly, even if your neighbours are assholes.
Right now, he needed friends.
Barney was blowing smoke down his nose, stamping his feet up and down in the cold morning air.
Chester forced a smile. "Make the most o'what?"
Barney lifted his face skywards; feeble rays from the pale yellow, watery sun fought to be seen through the clouds.
"This, mate. Outside. Fresh air. Not being shut underground." He shut his eyes and breathed in. "Al said we may not think it'll be hard, but it will."
Mr Verlander to you, retard. Why had Alex brought this lame-brain along for the ride?
"Yeah, but there's a special room with, y'know, outdoor smells and sounds. Like, birds and wild animals. And UV light. Alex says it boosts your mood, same as being in the countryside on a sunny day."
Barney shrugged. "Won't fool me. Can y'imagine, knowing it's summer back home, and not being able to catch some rays? I ain't looking forward to that." He laughed. "Fuck, I've never been river fishing in my life, but all of a sudden I'm getting this craving to go!"
Chester turned away. He closed his eyes and pictured his home. His real home, back in Charlotte. The sun on the lawn in the mornings. Hearing his buddy Shane pull up in his truck, hooting his horn. His mom out front, doing whatever she did to the roses, calling to him not to be late home for supper. His sister Lori sitting on the porch, fingers tapping away on her phone.
He didn't even know if Shane was still alive.
Fuck. His eyes were filling up. Mustn't let Barney see.
That was his life, not this.
The first hasty exodus from the States had been a bit of a shock to the system, but Logan Island had turned out to be sweet, even though he'd missed his friends. Then there was Central, Flora and the Juno Initiative that had seemed like fun at first but pretty soon freaked the hell out of him. That was when everything started going from bad to worse, and when the worst happened it was so damn quick. One minute they'd discovered the virus was back, the next they were up in the air and away.
Aside from half-listening to Alex's chatter about how awesome Area G was, he hadn't given much thought to the situation he faced.
He knew Area G was like a vast, underground town on several different levels, which he couldn't imagine at all. He knew his father would be there, strutting around, doing his top secret stuff. Chester's elder brothers used to hint about the crazy shit their father's side of Maxlo was involved in, and it sounded like something out of a sci-fi movie.
Chester had no desire to follow in his dad's footsteps. His dream had been to run diving trips out in the Keys, or be a major social media influencer and get paid by companies to take cool photos of their products. But all that was gone now, and he'd be stuck underground for as long as it took to rid the world of this second wave of the virus.
But what if it never died out, and they had to remain in Area G forever? Would they become white-faced wraiths, creeping around beneath the world? What would they do for food? They would die, they'd have to come up, risk catching it—or would his dad turn them into cyborgs, in order to survive? If he was half a robot, would he still be him, Chester Odenkirk, or a collection of mechanised reactions with no memories of the sun on the lawn in Charlotte? He'd rather be dead!
"Chester, mate. Y'alright?"
He swallowed hard and threw down his cigarette butt. "Yeah. I'm good."
"Best go make some yellow snow 'fore we go." Barney laughed. "C'mon. Al's going to want to get off."
Once they were up in the air, Chester pressed his face against the windows, drinking in the sea, the sky, the birds, the clouds. His eyes grew tired but he could not stop looking; he was scared that if he shut them for one moment he would never again see those sights that he'd taken for granted all his life, and there would be only darkness.
This was it, then. Area G.
Outside the fence, Alex Verlander put his hand on Chester's shoulder.
"You ready for this? You know that once we're in we don't come out?"
"Yeah." He didn't dare say more, in case those damn tears started up again. The sky was forbiddi
Everyone else looked pleased to be there.
Trying to convince themselves, maybe.
Verlander opened the gates, and in they went. Before them was a small, brick building with a steel door. Verlander was still smiling underneath that lame woolly bobble hat, his tan face nestling into the collar of his skiing jacket.
"We'll be safe here." He patted Chester's shoulder again. "It's over. We're the lucky ones. We just gotta sit it out, yeah?"
"Yeah."
"And you'll see your mom and dad again, and your brothers and Lori—you're excited about that?"
"I guess." His mom and Lori, anyway.
"Okay, guys!" Verlander looked round at them all. "Take a last look at the sky, if you want to—and remember this is just a temporary vacation, until the current crisis is over; we'll soon be back at Central, ready to embrace the new world for real!"
Chester looked up, praying for a glimpse of the sun, but all he could see was grey. He was vaguely aware of Verlander keying numbers into the pad on the side of the door and standing close to a small facial recog screen. One by one they followed suit, and then they were in. And the steel door shut fast, behind them.
Down, down they went, into the bowels of the earth. The elevator was warm, with soft lighting; they could have been at Maxlo HQ.
"How far down are we?" Chester asked.
Verlander smiled. "Why, not claustrophobic, are you?"
"Yeah. Bit."
"Don't think about it," said Dr Porter, behind him. "Even if you've never been claustrophobic, focusing on it in a situation like this can make you so."
So, of course, Chester could think of nothing else. He tried to picture the lake where he used to go fishing with his brothers when he was a kid. Parties at college. Hanging out with Shane, hitting on girls. But all that made him too sad, so he tried to think of nothing at all.
When the elevator stopped, they walked down dimly-lit passages with low ceilings, turning right, then left, then right again, until they came to another door. Another facial recog screen, then they were in a room, brightly lit and welcoming, and Chester relaxed. It had a carpet and couches, like a doctor's waiting room.
Except there weren't any windows.
Clunk! The wall at one side slid back to reveal a large pane of glass.
For a moment, Chester thought his mind was playing tricks on him. The woman smiling at them from the other side looked like Erika Thiessen. He began to laugh. Hey, was this was some freaky future-world shit already? Had his dad cloned her, or brought her back to life? Or had he slipped into another dimension, where Erika wasn't really dead at all, or nurse Abbie, or Dr Libby the psychologist, and they were all here, all alive, and—
"Chester."
He saw the Erika-woman's lips move but her voice came from elsewhere. The ceiling. No, the wall. And they were all staring at him. Like, concerned—
"Take it easy, buddy." Verlander spoke softly as he gave him another of his shoulder squeezes.
Chester looked again at the Erika-woman. Her face blurred, but he could see, now, that it wasn't her. It wasn't Erika, because she was dead. They were all dead, Abbie and her sister, and that guard called Walsh, and probably Flora now, too, Flora and his baby, and Jared the microchip man, all dead, all dead, and Shane, and his ex-girlfriend Debbie, and—
"I'm okay." He blinked, shook his head. "I'm just tired."
"Are you sure?" The woman stood still for a moment, surveying him, but she must have decided everything was hunky dunky, 'cause she smiled at them all and held out her arms in a warm gesture.
"You've made it―welcome to Area G! My name is Doctor Verity Raines, and you are in the quarantine zone." She smiled again, a practised expression. "Please don't be dismayed by the word 'quarantine'; this is standard procedure when new residents arrive. Shortly, you will be admitted to our assessment centre, where you will undergo a full medical. Once all tests have been completed to our satisfaction, you will be escorted to your residential quarters." She looked at Chester. "Some of you will also be reunited with your families."
Chester let his mind go blank.
Over the next few hours he let the people in protective clothing do everything they needed to do to him. He answered their questions, made the right noises in response to their chit-chat, and afterwards he sank into a narrow bed with cool white linen, and slept. Verlander was in a room on one side, Barney on the other. He was safe.
When he awoke, his limbs felt so heavy and his bladder so full that he knew he must have been asleep for a long time. It could even be the next day, but how the hell did he find out? There were no clocks, and no outside, so he didn't know if it was morning or night.
He pulled on his jeans and headed for the door.
It was locked.
"Hey!" He banged on it, slammed his palm against it. "Hey! Someone open this!" No answer. He tried the wall. Verlander's side. "Hey, Alex! You there? Alex?" Then the other side. "Barney!" Nothing. No answer.
A voice, out of nowhere. Not one he recognised; it sounded almost robotic.
"Good morning, Chester. I hope you slept well. You will find a small jug and a sample bottle in the cabinet beside your bed. Please urinate into the jug and pour an adequate amount of urine into the sample bottle. Dispose of the remaining urine in the toilet. Wash the jug and your hands using the disinfectant solution provided, then secure the top of the bottle and place it in the covered hatch by the door for collection. A doctor will speak to you shortly."
"The fuck?"
He threw open the tiny cabinet door, took out the jug and held it in the stream while he emptied his bladder, followed the instructions, and waited.
"What do I do now?" he called out, to no one. No answer. "Will someone talk to me, please?" Out of nowhere, those damn tears sprang into his eyes again. They couldn't leave him here like this, he was Harlan Odenkirk's son!
"Do you know who I am?" he shouted. Duh-uh. Of course they knew who he was. They'd been expecting him. His friggin' face was programmed into the recog scanner.
"Good morning, Chester."
A different voice this time. A soothing, pleasant one.
"This is Doctor Verity Raines." Ah yeah, the Erika woman. "Please try not to feel distressed. One of your blood tests showed irregularities, so you will be detained in quarantine for a short while. As soon as we have determined the exact nature of these irregularities, you will be moved to more suitable accommodation. In the meantime, we will make you as comfortable as possible. There is reading material on the tablet provided, and on the monitor is an extensive library of games and films. Breakfast will be served shortly."
"Irregularities? What does that mean?"
There was no answer.
Ten minutes later, breakfast arrived through a hatch in the door; happily, not the one in which he'd deposited his piss.
Poached eggs and English muffins, his favourite. A polystyrene cup of coffee, another containing orange juice.
He shouted through the hatch, "Hey! Please! Can you get someone to come see me? Get my dad? I want to know what's going on!"
But there was no answer, and there carried on being no answer for the rest of the morning.
"Take a look. Tests show an eighty-three per cent likelihood that it's a form of Kerivoula Lanosa Virus, but it's nothing we've seen before."
"He still has no symptoms?"
"No. I suspected hallucinations on arrival, but he seems well enough at the moment. High Risk for at least a month, I think."
"And those with him? Verlander?"
"Clear, all of them."
"Right. Keep a close watch, test the blood every day. If symptoms develop there's to be no pain relief; we'll need to observe. The others stay in Low Risk for a month, also with daily blood tests."
"I don't see that we can isolate them for that long when they're not showing irregularities. People are waiting on Verlander."
"Verlander, Porter and Carson, yes. Barney Mills and Cheryl Kent are inessential. Okay, we'll review in one week. If Odenkirk is still showing no symptoms, we put Mills and Kent in with him to test contagion. Verlander and the doctors remain in Low Risk for a fortnight. You'll let me know of any developments immediately, of course."
